


Why Do You Care

by AgentCatt



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Didn't start out as having chapters, I don't know how to tag this so :P, I was trying to figure out how I wanted to write a Maine x Wash fic, M/M, So I was in my pre calc class and started writing this, enjoy, previous Maine x Wash mentioned, this happened instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:59:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCatt/pseuds/AgentCatt
Summary: Stuff that could've happened when they were separated. Focusing on the Fed base. Hence the relationship in it.





	1. Chapter 1

           Wash abruptly wakes up in a cold sweat. He sits up and covers his face. All he can hear is Maine calling for him as he was thrown off the cliff on Sidewinder. He blames himself for Maine’s death. He gave up. He had no energy left to fight. He wanted to die by his lover’s hands. Not by some stranger, but that’s not how it went down. He groans at the memory seeping through.

            Wash gets out of bed and puts on some sweats quietly, trying not to wake any of the others. He’s thankful he didn’t wake up screaming. That would not have been fun to handle since none of the reds with him in the Fed base know about his nightmares.

            He shuts the door quietly behind him. He hopes he walks in the right direction to the training room he saw when he was being escorted to their room. He’s surprised that he could remember where it was at the time of night. He’s exhausted, yes, but that doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t bother taping up his hands. Why should he?

            He squares up with the punching bag and just starts hitting it. With every hit, he remembers how Maine would stand up for him against the other Freelancers. He can’t forget the first time they laid in bed together. The first time for pretty much everything. He doesn’t realize he’s hitting harder and faster. Hands bleeding. He remembers the last mission with Maine. It wasn’t his Maine, but Maine did still love him. That was very evident in the desert. He can’t keep his mind from going back to Sidewinder. Maine was supposed to stop. They had Epsilon. They could’ve gone off somewhere together. They could’ve escaped all this, but this isn’t a fairy tale.

 “Wash!”

            He doesn’t stop. He hears someone call him, but it sounds like Maine. _I deserve this._ Wash thinks to himself. He doesn’t stop. _It’s all my fault._ He goes to hit as hard as he can, but hands stop him.

 “Wash. Stop.” He’s turned around to see who stopped him. Oh, it’s just Locus. There’s hate and anxiety in Wash’s eyes. Locus can see it. “You didn’t even tape your hands.”

 “Why should I?” Wash looks away. His voice harsh, almost like it’s not his. He won’t admit it, but he was stuck in the memory. Locus pulled him out of it. Part of him wants to thank Locus. The other part wants to push him away in disgust for helping.

 “Why? So this doesn’t happen.” He holds up Wash’s hands in front of Wash’s face. Wash tilts his head. _Huh. When did that happen?_ Wash asks himself. Wash just shrugs and looks Locus in the eyes, glaring.

 “Oh well. Now if you’ll excuse me, let me go so I can continue.”

 “No.” Locus can see how tired Wash is. He can almost count the number of nights that Wash has barely slept. “Come on.”

 “What?” Wash is being dragged behind Locus. “Where we going?”

 “Clean and bandage your hands.”

 “I don’t need your help, Locus.” He tries to get his wrists out of Locus’s grip, but just makes him hold on tighter. Wash is starting to feel the pain.

 “Clearly, you do.”

            Wash groans and allows himself to be dragged to who knows where. He’d be lying if he said Locus wasn’t good looking. If Locus had been there during Project Freelancer, he probably would’ve asked for both because he definitely can’t pick between him or Maine.

            They stop at this door. Locus unlocks it. Wash wasn’t paying attention to where they were going. He can’t find his way back to his own room after this. Locus makes Wash walk in front of him. He closes the door behind him.

 “Sit.”

            Wash listens, looking around. Fascinated by how neat and clean the room is. He almost didn’t want to sit on the bed because it looked so neatly done. This is probably Locus’s room. _And you didn’t pay attention to how you got here,_ Wash mentally kicks himself. He didn’t even realize Locus has his own little bathroom. He pulls up the chair from the desk to sit in front of Wash with a wet towel.

 “This your room?”

 “Yes.”

 “So clean.”

            Locus doesn’t respond. He continues to clean Wash’s stinging wounds. Now that he has nothing to think about, they hurt. Kinda wishes he used to tape, but believes he deserves this pain.

 “Why?” Wash breaks the silence once Locus finishes.

 “Hm?” Locus finally looks at him.

 “Why do you care enough to,” Wash holds up his hands.

 “Because I had just gotten back from a scouting mission,” meeting with Control and being forced to be around Felix. “Saw what you were doing and just stopped you. You wouldn’t have cleaned up.”

 “True. I’ll give you that.” Wash stares at the ground, listening to the water run in the sink. “Locus, how do I get back to my room? I wasn’t paying attention to how we got here.”

 “I’ll show you in the morning. I advise getting comfortable.”

 “What morning?!” Wash turns to look at Locus, brows raised.

 “I have a feeling you’ll just go back to the training room.”

_Well fuck he knows._ Wash lays back with a grown. “Don’t expect me to sleep.”

 “I don’t.” Wash unintentionally watches Locus change into sweats and a tank top. Locus grabs a book. Wash quickly looks away. He feels Locus sit on his side. _Why do I have to have a type? Why can’t I just not?_ Wash can’t help, but to groan then sigh. Might as well enjoy the company, right? He sits up to reposition himself parallel to Locus, who opened his book to read. “What are you doing?” Locus stops and looks at him.

 “I told you to not expect me to sleep. So I’m just going to sit here. Kinda.” Words are failing Wash just a bit right now.

 “You should sleep. You look exhausted.”

 “I’m good. I’m not tired.” Lies. He’s very tired and would love to sleep, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. He won’t let Locus know how bad his nightmares can get.

 “Wash.” Locus debates, but decides to say anyway, “Would you sleep better if I held you?”

 “No.” Wash quickly says. _Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Please do._ Wash can’t stop his thoughts. Wash finds himself slowly scooting over to lay against Locus. Locus wraps his arm around Wash and goes back to reading. Wash rests his head on Locus’s shoulder, trying to keep his eyes open. Okay yeah he’s tired. It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

           Wash groans before slowly opening his eyes. How long had he slept? His men are probably worried about him. Where is he exactly? He can’t remember much. He hears the door shut. He turns to look at who it is. _Oh,_ his memory comes back. Locus stares at him for a second.

 “Did you just wake up, Agent Washington?”

 “Maybe.” He yawns. He watches Locus put his helmet on the desk.

 “Go shower then I’ll take you back.”

 “Just take me back? In a minute. Comfy.” He lays his head back down and closes his eyes. An image of Maine flashes in his mind. He sits up. “Nope never mind. I’ll take that shower.”

            He gets up and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stares at himself in the mirror. He hasn’t seen his face in a long time. He slowly touches the bags under his eyes. He could use more night’s sleep like the last half of last night. He sighs to himself. _That bed was comfy and Locus isn’t half bad himself,_ Wash turns on the shower. _Can’t believe I’m actually considering this._ Wash strips and steps in. The water feels good on his skin. A truly private shower is also really good. He doesn’t want it to end, but has to step out at some point.

            He looks at his own closes as he puts the towel around his waist. He doesn’t really want to put those back on, but it’s not like he has many clothing anymore and the ones he does have, are falling apart. At least that’s what Wash tell himself. He is losing weight again. Wash sighs and steps out of the bathroom.

 “Question…” Wash starts to hesitate. “Do you have anything that would fit me?” Yeah it’s a long shot since Locus is just so big. Locus just stares for a moment before responding.

 “I might.” He looks through his drawers to find something that belongs to Felix. Good thing it’s just plain. “Here.” He hands Wash a plain black shirt and some sweats.

 “Thanks.” Wash goes back into the bathroom. Surprisingly enough it fits. A little tight, but fits better than anything he has. He walks back out. “I’d like the way back now.”

 “As promised,” Locus opens the door to his room. Wash walks in front of him. “Right.” Wash goes right. He’s making sure he pays extra attention to which ways they go so he can reverse it and find his way back to Locus’s room.

            They walk in silence except for when Locus tells Wash which way to go. Is he dreading going back to Donut and Sarge? The simple answer: yes. Once he hears Donut’s cheery voice, he sighs to himself and Locus notices.

 “You’re invited into my room whenever you want.” Locus tells him and leaves before Wash could respond.

 “Wash! There you are!” Donut acknowledges his presence. Wash is curious to know why Locus told him that. Yeah, he’s noticed how Locus is fond of him in some way, but why? Why does it matter? Why does he care enough?

 “Hey Donut.”

“Wash, your hands?” Donut points out. He completely forgot about them. They don’t hurt, but they still look bad.

 “Oh. This? It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he doesn’t want to alarm them.

 “Son, that doesn’t look like nothing.” Sarge speaks up.

 “It just looks worse than it actually is.” He puts his hands in his pockets. Now that he thinks about it, why does Locus have clothes that would fit him? He shouldn’t at all, but he did. Why?

 “You okay?” Donut asks.

 “Huh? Yeah. Sorry. Spaced out.” He makes his way past them to the Mess Hall. It’s lunch time after all. He’s shocked he slept that long, but wouldn’t mind doing it again.

            Wash spends the rest of his day with the Reds doing nothing noteworthy. They sit around, talking. He can’t fathom doing this for years on end in Blood Gulch. He’s just bored and wants to do something. His mind can only stay sane for so long with doing nothing. He stands up.

 “Where you going, Wash?” Donut asks.

 “Training room. I can’t just sit around all day.” He leaves without another word. He’s on autopilot, thinking about the others. Hoping they’re okay. Tucker can lead them if they really need it, so it’s not like they’ll die by themselves.

            Wash takes his time taping up his hands. He starts off slow, thinking about how he hits, his stance, but then his mind changes to think of Locus. Yeah some things he’s said are true. That they are similar. There’s no doubt about that, but at least he’s trying to be better. Right? That’s what he’s doing. Trying to be better. He can’t tell if he’s succeeding or not. The thought of that makes him hit harder and harder.

            He doesn’t know how much time has passed when Locus stops him yet again. He’s panting, frustrated that he’s been stopped.

 “Can you not do that?” He pants out.

 “Only if you stop going so hard.” Wash scoffs at Locus’s response and moves away from him. He doesn’t know how to if he tried. “At least this time you taped your hands.”

 “Yeah well I’m more conscious today.”

 “I can see that.” Wash starts to take the tape off his hands. “Would it make you feel better to spar?”

 “Ha. No thanks. I’d work better with you than against you,” Wash doesn’t realize he’s said that. It’s like with Maine. They work amazing together, but against one another and Wash might end up dead.

 “I’d say we can test that, but there’s no one here that compares to our skills.” Wash nods in response as he throws away the tape. He starts to walk out past Locus. “Where you going?”

 “My room. Why does it matter?”

 “No reason.”

 “Clearly there is a reason.” Wash faces Locus. Locus just shakes his head. “There is a reason and you’re not telling me. Doesn’t surprise me.”

“There really is no reason. You just continue to fascinate me.”

 “Is that code for ‘come sleep in my room again so I can keep an eye on you so you don’t hurt yourself again’?”

Locus doesn’t say anything for a solid minute. “Yes.” Even though it’s not completely true. He just wants Wash to feel like he’s figured something out about himself.

 “I accept.”

            Locus is very surprised by these two words. He wants to ask why, but decides against it for now. Maybe he’ll ask later.

 “That and I just like the personal shower.” Wash slightly smiles. Locus does the same little smile.

 “Of course.”

            They head off in the direction of Locus’s room in silence. Wash is mentally kicking himself for agreeing, but the closeness of someone feels good in some way. He hasn’t been this close to people at night due to his nightmares and he knows Locus can handle himself if he gets physical. Maybe he should just go back to the training room. Sleep there that way no one will hear him or see him when a nightmare happens. Yeah maybe he should do that, but he keeps walking along side of Locus instead of turning around to go back to the training room.

            When they get to Locus’s room, Wash sits on the chair in front of the desk. It’s just so neat. He doesn’t want to touch anything. Locus takes the data pad from the desk and looks like he’s messaging someone. Yeah, he’s messaging Felix to tell him to only contact if it’s an emergency because Wash is spending the night. Of course by saying this, Felix will tease him the next time they’re together, but it won’t bother him. He puts the data pad under his pillow.

 “You can move around; you know?” Locus breaks the silence.

 “It’s just so neat and clean. I don’t want to mess anything up.” He watches Locus change for the night. Locus doesn’t mind. Some would say he does it on purpose.

 “Feel free to mess up the bed. Try to leave everything else neat. You can touch things.” Locus says. He walks over to the desk. “This is where you learn something about me.” He grabs his glasses from the top left drawer along with a contacts case.

 “Wait. You wear contacts?”

 “I have decently perfect sight except for when it comes to reading. So,” he takes out his contacts, “these are for when I’m out and about. And these glasses are for at night when I read.”

 “Oh. Makes sense.” He watches Locus sit on the bed and put the glasses on before he opens his book. “The glasses suit you.”

 “Thank you,” Locus goes on reading.

            After a little while, Wash climbs in the bed next to Locus and lays there, looking at the ceiling. He feels comfortable in the silence. Like he used to with Maine. _Stop it,_ Wash mentally kicks himself for bring up Maine again. He doesn’t know how long he lays there before falling asleep. He tried to keep himself awake, but failed.

            In the middle of the night, Wash wakes up screaming an incoherent “no” mixed with hyperventilating. They took Epsilon from him. He got to watch everyone be tortured. He brings his knees to his chest. He feels a hand on his back making slow, calming circles.

 “Sorry,” Wash mutters. Locus sits up, not removing his hand from Wash’s back.

 “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.”

            Wash sits like that for a little while before laying back down in Locus’s arms. He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s done till he rests his head on Locus’s chest. He’s so warm and comfortable.

 “Why do you care?” Wash whispers minutes later.

 “Because we’re similar.”

            Wash takes the answer for now. He listens to Locus’s heart beat as he slowly slips back to sleep despite his best efforts to stay awake.


	3. Chapter 3

           Wash wakes up way before Locus does. He gets up out of bed and jumps into the shower. He takes his sweet time, not really wanting to face the day. He hasn’t completely felt like this since Maine died. He sighs. _Focus on the water. Focus on getting the rest of your men back._ But he can’t. He has too much down time here. He has to be doing something at all times and if he doesn’t…

            Wash is brought back to the present when the water turns very cold. He quickly turns it off and gets out. Drying himself off, then getting dressed. If he had his way, he’d spend all day in the training room, but Locus would probably stop him at some point. _Of course he would._ Wash fixes his hair to the best of his ability. Once satisfied, he walks out to see Locus just closing the door to his room. Locus turns to see Wash.

 “One of Dr. Gray’s assistants came to say you have a check-up?”

 “Well good thing cause I completely forgot.” Wash rubs the back of his head. Due to Gray’s concern for Wash, she requests a check-up at least once a week, if she’s not busy with everyone else in the army. Wash kinda let it slip that he’s been hit in the head over five times, plus what happened with Epsilon. He didn’t mean to. It just flowed out of his mouth before his brain could tell him to shut up.

 “You’re still seeing Dr. Gray?” Locus just starts to change. Wash tries so hard to not look.

 “Yeah. I let some things slip, so she’s a little worried. I shouldn’t be a functional human being,” Wash begins to leave. He had to force his legs to leave. “I won’t be here tonight.”

 “Okay.” Locus doesn’t stop him. He’s a little surprised by that. Since he’s been a little mother hen to him? _Is that the right words?_ Wash second guesses himself.

            It’s just so much like Maine. When Wash would wake up from a nightmare while on the Mother of Invention, Maine would invite him into his bed for comfort. Maine would keep him from hurting himself when they were in the desert and Maine got to witness how bad he got. Locus is just too much like Maine, but not fucked from an AI like him or Maine was. And he spoke more than Maine. That’s a given. Wash wants to punch something for Locus being a lot like Maine, but doesn’t. He realizes his feet took him straight to the med bay since he almost ran into Dr. Gray.

 “Oh! Agent Washington. There you are,” her voice chipper as ever.

 “Hi, Dr. Gray.” Wash doesn’t want to be here. She’s going to ask so many questions he doesn’t want to answer. Wash follows her into her office. “No tests today?”

 “No, just a friendly see how you’re doing.” She sits in her chair. Wash slowly sits in the chair across from her.

 “So no more tests?”

 “Not unless I see a reason for any,” she smiles warmly.

 “Okay. That works for me.” Wash slightly smiles back. He’s completely fine. Why does he have to do this? _She’s going to bring it up, isn’t she?_

 “I heard my assistant found you in Locus’s room.” _Yup, there it is._

 “Sadly.” When Gray doesn’t say anything, he decides to continue saying something. “He just reminds me of Maine and it’s very comforting. Wish it wasn’t.”

 “Why do you wish it wasn’t?” _Maybe, since she’s being the therapist of the hour, to talk everything through, it’ll be easier to figure out what to do. Because I definitely don’t really trust my own brain to make the decision right now._

“I…” Wash trails off. _I don’t really deserve it._

 “It’s okay.”

 “I don’t deserve it,” Wash whispers barely loud enough for her to hear.

 “Of course you deserve it. What you guys don’t deserve is to be caught up in our war.” Wash just nods and listens. Part of him wants to tell her that she’s wrong for saying he deserves anything good. The other part of him understands that she’s correct. He sighs to himself.

 “It’s a raging battle with myself to figure out what’s right or wrong and half the time I make the wrong decision. I’m just not sure with this.”

 “If it feels right, go for it.” Wash manages to look at her with his slight smile back.

 “Thank you,” he gets up and leaves abruptly. _It’ll be okay, right?_ Wash asks himself as he heads to the mess hall. He couldn’t sit there any longer. He feels bad for leaving like that, but just couldn’t. He had to get out of there. The walls felt like they were closing in on him.

            He gets to the mess hall to find barely anyone there. He lets out a sigh of relief then gets himself something to eat. He sits alone at the end of one of the tables. It reminds him of his first week on the Mother of Invention. How he didn’t know anyone. He sat alone, but one day a few of the others sat with him; North, York, CT, and Maine. He smiles to himself, remembering York and North bickering to one another. Maine was quiet and CT kept asking him questions. It’s a very nice memory. He would look at Maine without the others knowing because of his damn type.

 “You should actually eat your food instead of pushing it around.” Locus sits in front of Wash, making him jump back into reality. _I really need to stop doing that._ Wash hates that he let himself calm down enough to be caught off guard. “Sorry.”

 “No, it’s my fault.” Wash takes a bite of his food. Once he swallows he asks. “Why do you care? Seriously. Answer me honestly.”

 “Because I like you.” He didn’t hesitate. _HE DIDN’T HESITATE. He has to be lying, right?_

“I don’t believe you.” _How could anyone like me?_

 “Then believe this,” Locus leans over the table, pulling Wash in for a kiss. To both their surprise, Wash doesn’t pull back. It’s all too familiar. When Locus pulls back and sits down, Wash whines silently then realizes what happened.

 “No. No.” He gets up. “No. You’re nothing but a monster. No. Just no.” He quickly walks out of the mess hall and to his room. Of course everyone else is there. He doesn’t know where to go to hide. Should just stay there. He is staying there as Donut drags him in the room. It takes an idiot to not realize Wash is in a panic state.

 “You okay son?” Sarge asks. Wash sits on his bed.

 “I’m fine.” _My mind is playing tricks on me again. I don’t know how this’ll turn out._

 “You don’t look fine,” Donut speaks up.

 “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

            Amazingly enough, they leave it at that. Wash is surprised, but thankful. He rather spend time in his thoughts than try to explain anything. Halfway through the night, Wash finds himself wondering the halls instead of sleeping. It doesn’t surprise him when he ends up standing in front of Locus’s door. He goes to knock, but stops himself. Before he can even walk away, the door opens and he’s pulled in. _Maybe this isn’t a bad idea._ Wash thinks as he and Locus cuddle, eventually falling asleep like that.


	4. Chapter 4

            Wash hates himself for spending more and more time with Locus. He doesn’t really want to admit to himself that he likes Locus. Well, his subconscious tries to get him to admit it to himself in dreams at least. When Wash doesn’t have nightmares, he dreams of Locus. Can’t escape him. He wants to hit himself for this. How could he let himself even remotely like anyone? God, this sucks, but Wash remains still, listening to Locus’s deep, calm, breathing. It’s soothing. He doesn’t want to get up.

            Wash tries to stifle a yawn, but it ends up being a little too much. Locus stirs slightly. Wash can’t help but to slightly smile at Locus when he opens his eyes.

 “You’re awake early,” Locus is the first to say something.

 “Morning to you too,” Wash moves an inch closer to Locus just to kiss him. It’s really nice to have some form of contact with another human being. It’s been far too long.

            Their morning routine starts with some kisses then one showers or they both do together. It depends on how they feel or if Locus has to leave early because of something Doyle needs (at least that’s what Locus tells Wash).

 “Do you have time to shower?” Wash asks once he pulls away. He has to meet with the others to create a plan to get out of here and rescue the other half of his team.

 “Yes.” Wash nods then gets up, followed by Locus. They head into the bathroom together. It always makes Wash just the slightest bit anxious doing this, not only because of his scars, but because he’s losing weight from not eating enough. Locus always let’s Wash touch his scars. It calms him down. He never asks where they came from and he is never told how they happened.

            When Wash finishes touching the scars, they step into the shower. Wash lets Locus wash his back while he washes the front of him. This is the only intimate thing they do. Both are very much okay with it. Wash loves it when Locus massages his scalp. He’ll start purring if it’s really good. The first time Wash did that, Locus chuckled and asked if he was actually purring, resulting in Wash admitting he might be part cat.

            When they’re together like this, Wash lets himself relax for once. He doesn’t relax often, but he’s begun to relax around Locus. Something he knows he shouldn’t do, but he can’t help it. There’s just something about Locus. The way he can get Wash to relax. He doesn’t want to lose this. He’ll miss it so much. He’ll miss the soft kisses Locus plants on his neck. The callous, yet soft, touch of his hands.

            Locus finishes cleaning Wash, so they switch spots. Wash cleans Locus’s back for him. This is one of the only times Wash is allowed to touch his hair. It’s always smooth to touch.

            Once Locus is rinsed off, Wash steps out of the shower, taking one towel and drying himself off before wrapping it around his waist. Locus does the same, but gets another towel for his hair. Wash stares at Locus. This one question always comes back to his mind.

 “Why do you care?” Wash breaks the silence between the two.

 “You never seem to believe me when I tell you, but it’s because I do like you. We are very similar.” Locus offers a warm smile. “Trust me.”

 “I do trust you. I just don’t believe that anyone could like me. Not anymore at least.” Wash looks at the ground. He knows that any negativity is because of the Epsilon incident, but can’t help to feel that way still. Wash all of a sudden feels arms wrap around him.

 “Take your time in believing it. I’ll always be here to remind you.” Wash sighs to himself. Instead of fighting liking Locus, he’s fighting himself on whether or not he deserves this.

 “Get dressed,” Locus pulls away sometime later. Wash lost track of what time it is. He technically doesn’t have to be out till a bit later, but he also figures that Locus will make him eat. Locus and Wash get dressed in silence as usual. That’s another thing that Locus likes about Wash. They can sit in silence for hours and not feel the need to talk about anything.

            Shortly after they’re both dressed, they head out of what should be considered both theirs room. If you’re looking for Wash and he’s not in the training room or mess hall, you can usually find him in that room instead of his own shared with Sarge. He’ll admit to himself that he’s glad he doesn’t have to sleep in the same room as Sarge. That would not end well.

            Wash doesn’t know when they started holding hands. He knows Locus isn’t the type to just take someone’s hand and hold it, so it must’ve been him. But for the life of him, he can’t figure out when he started doing it. It’s almost natural to them by now. To be walking anywhere, holding hands. They’ll get looks from the other soldiers. Some smile and giggle as they walk by. It’s nothing new to the soldiers by now, but people are still surprised that they’re considered together, even though the both of them have never really defined their relationship.

 “Make sure you eat your meals,” Locus speaks up when they’re standing in front of the mess hall. “There’s something I’ve got to take care of. I’ll see you tonight.” Wash frowns. Locus quickly kisses Wash’s lips. “Don’t frown. I’ll be back soon enough.” Locus walks off before Wash could say anything to that.

            He sighs to himself and goes into the mess hall. He gets himself a nice meal for a change, but once he finishes it, he realizes he probably shouldn’t have eaten that much. Especially since the soldiers in this war deserve it more, but he ate it nonetheless. Locus should be proud that he ate. At least, Wash hopes. _It’s stupid_ , Wash thinks to himself, _that I’m trying to please someone that I won’t even be around for much longer._

 “Wash!” Donut pulls Wash out of his thoughts. “There you are!”

 “Oh, hey Donut.” Wash gets up and throws away his trash. “Are we having out meeting now? I assume in one of our quarters?”

 “Yes, I came to find you since you didn’t show up on time. I thought you were getting some.”

 “Getting some what? Oh. No Donut. No. Definitely not.” Wash is turning red. “Just lead the way back to whichever room we’re having the meeting in.”

            They get back to Donut and Lopez’s room. Why are there two beds when Lopez doesn’t sleep on one? The planet will never know. Wash sits on it, cross legged. Lopez stays standing while Donut and Sarge sit across from Wash.

 “So… Any ideas?” Wash is the first to ask.

 “I was thinking that we find Grif and we— “

 “No, Sarge. Any real ideas. Anyone?” Wash interrupts Sarge.

 “Probably best to sneak out after dark?” Donut suggests. “Or when they’re all very distracted?”

 “Yeah, that works. Um. When would also be a good thing to discuss.”

            They go at it for hours. Arguing back and forth. At least Grif or Simmons isn’t here to add to the arguing. That would be an absolute nightmare. When they finally come to an agreement of an approximant when and a definite how, it’s time to eat dinner. Had they really wasted the entire day on this? Wash is honestly amazed he didn’t shoot his brains out listening to them argue the entire time. Or how Donut tried to translate Lopez when he was clearly wrong.

            They all leave the room together and head to the mess hall for dinner. Wash wonders if Locus is back yet. Even if he is, he’ll probably just go to the training room and get in a few rounds of something. Just hopefully he won’t lose himself like he usually does and has the be stopped.

            The gang sits together in the mess hall. Sarge and Donut are arguing about something again. Wash just eats slowly in silence. His mind is telling him that something is wrong. Something isn’t right about the whole situation with Locus. It tells him that he should stay away from Locus, but how can he when it’s the most comfortable he’s been since Maine. He ignores that part of his brain telling him he should run from Locus. It’s probably right, but Wash has nothing to lose. Might as well just ride out the storm, right?

            As Wash said he probably would, he ends up leaving the three to go to the training room. He reminds himself to tape his hands. Doesn’t want to get yelled at again for not taping his hands for the fifth time now. Halfway through, he gets stopped by Locus.

 “Never fails.” Wash tries to steady his breathing. He never really realizes he goes too hard until he stops whatever he’s doing.

 “You go too hard. Of course I’m going to stop you.”

 “I think you just have a radar that tells you when I’m in here. How was your day?” Wash wants to change the subject.

 “As decent as you can get in a war zone.” Locus takes ahold of Wash’s hands. “Stop hurting yourself.”

 “Eh. I’ll stop when I’m dead.” Wash freezes, realizing what he just said. That can be taken so many ways; sarcastically and literally. Wash means it literally, sadly.

 “No, you’ll stop now. It’s time to stop anyway.” Wash looks at the clock. He doesn’t remember it getting this late. Wash sighs and takes the tape off his hands.

 “Fine.” Wash throws the tape away. “But I’m spending all day here tomorrow.”

 “Fair enough.” Locus knows it helps Wash to be constantly active. “I’ll be joining you then.”

 “Works for me,” Wash takes Locus’s hand as they head back to their room. It’s going to be interesting when Wash leaves. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the sudden loss of human affection. Well, then Wash will just focus on the war itself and nothing else. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see.


	5. Chapter 5

             Locus is woken up by the sounds of mutters. He opens his eyes quickly. Wash is about to have a full blown nightmare if he doesn’t wake him up quickly. Locus sits up slightly and puts his hand on Wash’s cheek. “Wash. You’re safe,” he quietly tells him. “Wash, please wake up. It’s just a dream.” Wash stirs slightly, mumbling in his sleep. “Wash. You’re safe. You’re with me on Chorus.” With those words, Wash shoots up, eyes wide and full of fright. He hadn’t gotten to the horrible part of his nightmare, but it still scared him. Locus rubs his back until he lays back down next to him.

 “Sorry,” Wash cuddles up to Locus. He’s always sorry when he wakes Locus up in the middle of the night.

 “Don’t be. It’s no problem to me,” Locus continues to rub Wash’s back. He’s come to learn that rubbing the freelancer’s back is the best way to get him to fall asleep faster after a nightmare. Even when he fights sleep.

 “I don’t want to leave you,” Wash says just as he falls back to sleep. Locus is confused by this saying. It’s a good thing to him, but what does it mean exactly. Is he planning on leaving soon? He wants to wake him to ask him, but it’s better he just leaves it till morning.

 

            Wash wakes up in the same spot he was in when he woke up from his nightmare. Locus is still asleep. He thinks to himself that he’s just going to lay there till he absolutely has to get up, but then he hears a ding from the data pad. It wakes Locus up. So much for that idea.

            Locus turns his back to Wash and looks at the data pad. Wash frowns as Locus tenses up.

 “What is it?” Wash asks.

 “I’ve got to go,” Locus sets the data pad down and turns back to Wash. So much for asking him what he meant by not wanting to leave him. He gives him a quick kiss then gets out of bed. Wash watches as he gets dressed. He’s left there in the room moments later.

            Wash sighs and gets out of bed. He was hoping to spend the morning with Locus before leaving, but no. Something had to come up. Of course. He’s never lucky enough to get exactly what he wants.

            Wash takes a very long shower. This is probably the last shower he’ll have for a bit. He doesn’t know when he’ll get another, to be honest with himself. He enjoys the warm water while trying to keep any and all thoughts away. He just wants to enjoy this. He’ll worry and deal with memories later, but that’s not how this works. He thinks about what happened just before Maine turned on him on Sidewinder. He thinks about how this entire situation feels just like that one.

            He can’t help it. It feels similar. He wants to call off the rescue of the rest of his men, but what if they really are being held captive by the enemy. No, they don’t have an enemy here. They crashed here. He survived another crash. This time it was different than before, but it’s the same. His brain can’t tell the difference. It’s the same.

            The feeling of cold water jolts him out of his mind. He turns the water off and gets out. He dries himself off, looking in the mirror, wondering what he’s going to do. He let himself feel somewhat safe with another person. He let himself be held at night after nightmares. He let someone figure out when he wasn’t exactly okay. He shouldn’t have done that.

            He leaves the bathroom to get dressed slowly. They’re leaving here soon. He needs to go be with the others, but he doesn’t have the energy to do so. He better find some energy soon. He’s going to need it.

            Once he’s dressed, he leaves to go find the others. Donut has said that he knows where their armor is. He’ll take them to it when it’s close to the time for them to leave. They leave sometime when everyone is at lunch. Or at least when they can get their armor on.

            Wash finds them bickering amongst each other. Donut is attempting to translate Lopez for Sarge, but even Wash knows that’s not what Lopez is saying. He wonders if Lopez hates Donut for it, or if he just doesn’t like people translating him? They should get him a chip to convert his language to English. It’d help us out sometimes.

 “Oh hey Wash!” Donut is the first to notice him. Lopez lets out a sigh of relief as he’s no longer being translated.

 “Hey. We all ready to do this?” Wash crosses his arms.

 “You bet your horses we’re ready,” Sarge does seem ready to get the rest of his team back. Even if he says he doesn’t like Grif. He loves his entire team, but he won’t admit it to anyone.

 “Okay, then we should make sure we have everything that we absolutely need to take with us.”

 “I have everything I need right here,” Donut smiles. He’s happy to hopefully get his team back as well. Even if his team says that they hate him. Sarge just nods in agreement.

 “Alright. Then we’re all ready to go.” _This should be fun._ Wash keeps thinking about Locus. He keeps wondering to himself if this is Maine all over again. It feels like Maine. His mind is telling him to leave and never look back, but he doesn’t want to.

            They take their time, waiting for lunch to make their move. It’s the longest wait Wash has to sit through and he was left on a crashed Mother of Invention for hours. Days maybe. Before getting rescued. He couldn’t tell you the exact time. This just feels longer even though it isn’t.

            When the lunch bells go off, he’s glad. He’s tired of waiting. They all get up quickly and head towards where their armor is kept. As soon as Wash sees his armor, he feels safe. He puts it on so quickly that the others don’t even have half theirs on. He lets out a sigh of relief. The armor feels like home.

            It takes the others a little longer to get into their armor. By the time they’re ready to go, lunch break is over with. Wash takes the lead to get them out of where people can find them. Sarge takes the back. They all ignored Donut’s remark for being a “Donut sandwich.”

            They get to these doors right as some alarm goes off. They hear all the guards heading towards to barracks. Now’s their best chance. The door opens just as they were about to have Lopez figure out how it opens.

 “Tucker?” Wash is so confused.

 “Wash?”

            _This… This isn’t going to go over all too well, isn’t it?_ Wash doesn’t know what to think really. Something’s not right. Yeah they really could’ve escaped and come to rescue them, but that doesn’t seem likely. Thank god Donut and the others are doing most of the talking. Wash is trying to process everything he hears. And wouldn’t Locus get a call and be told something is happening? No, maybe not. The message with the alarms didn’t sound like invasion or anything.

            Where did the alarms go? Wash doesn’t want to really bring attention to it. Wouldn’t the alarms still be going off? Did they fix the problem? Wash listens to the others talk about how they had their own squads. He reminds himself to tell Tucker later that he’s great for the job. No, he won’t need for him to say that.

 “We don’t have an enemy,” Wash replies to Sarge. “As far as I can tell, both of these forces have reason to fight and neither are particularly guilt-free. We’ve just been caught in the middle.”

 “But the rebels aren’t bad. Some of them are our friends!” Tucker replies back.

 “And we managed to make a few allies within the Federal Army.” Something in Wash’s mind laughs at him. _He’s more than an ally, you know._ “None of this makes either side any better. The New Republic started this war with extremist attacks on the capital.”

 “Only because the government was screwing them!” _Can Tucker just not fight me right now?_

 “You gotta admit, kinda sounds like a dick move.” Grif chimes in to help the case.

 “We need to get these two sides to talk to one another. Doyle’s in the capital at the moment, but maybe he can get this Kimball woman to agree to a meeting. If they can come to some sort of understanding, we might be able to end this thing and go home.” Yeah, home sounds really nice. Wash misses his cats and the simplicity of life back then.

 “This isn’t right.” Simmons sounds concerned. Maybe he caught on to the alarm not on anymore?

 “Believe me, there’s plenty wrong with this situation, but I think this is our best move. I’m just glad you guys made it.” Yeah it has to be, right? Even if it means getting away from Locus. _It’ll be okay._

            Yes, good he’s talking about the alarms. _Good. I’m not the only one that noticed them._ They all run out into the area where there should be tons of soldiers. No one really knows where they all went.

 “Hello?” Wash yells out. “Dr. Grey? Anybody?”

 “Dude, what’s going on?” Tucker walks up next to Wash.

 “I don’t know.”

            They hear some people on the Warthog radio call for help. They’re under attack. Of course they are. It’s the New Republic isn’t it?

 “Sarge!” Wash calls.

 “Way ahead of you!” Sarge drives by in a Warthog.

 “What’s happening?!” Simmons asks.

 “We’re under attack!”

            Sarge barks out orders to his team as a soldier of the Federal army comes over. He tries explaining who it is, but the man is disintegrated right in front of their eyes. Did that really just happen? A sticky bomb is stuck to the Warthog.

 “Get away from the car!” Wash exclaims as he’s the only one to really see it on the car. They all run away from the car just as it blows up.

 “What are we dealing with?” Wash asks.

 “We don’t know!” Donut sounds a bit scared. None of them know.

 “Well, it ain’t the rebels, that’s for sure!”

 “Then who the hell is it?” Tucker asks just as the sound of someone locking target goes off.

 “Like sheep to the pen.” _That voice. No. It can’t be. Please don’t be. But it is._

“Oh no…” Wash doesn’t want it to be Locus, but it is.

 “You’re ready for slaughter.” Locus uncloaks himself to be seen. Wash’s mind runs rampage. He can hear the voices in his head screaming “I told you so” and some other’s telling him that this comes with Locus being his type. Both make sense. Both make fair points. He doesn’t know what to think himself. Setting the voices aside, what does this really mean?

 “Locus!” Tucker brings his attention back to the situation.

 “I advise you stand down, boy.” More men appear around Locus. _No, nononono. This can’t be happening._ Tucker lowers his weapon with a grunt.

            This is Maine all over again, but worse. How could he let himself get close to someone? Even if it felt good to be in contact with another human being. How could he? He’s been through enough. Why didn’t he listen to the voices in his head? This wouldn’t hurt him as much as it does.

 “Agent Washington?” Locus is talking to him. Wash looks up at Locus. He didn’t realize he was staring at the ground, thinking. When did Felix get here? “Come up here.”

 “Why would I?” If he could see Wash’s face, he would be able to see the fact that he’s very disappointed in Locus for what he’s done.

 “Don’t you trust me?” _No, don’t bring that up. Don’t bring that up!_

 “I don’t know.” Now Locus can hear the confusion in Wash’s voice.

 “Trust me. Like you have for a while now. Come up here.”

            Wash thinks to himself. This is such a bad idea. But he does trust Locus when he knows he shouldn’t. He’s been fighting that side of himself since the first day Locus helped him. He begins to move to go up on the platform with Locus.

 “Wash! What are you doing?!” Tucker tries to stop him, but Wash moves out of the way. Wash gets up the stairs and stands behind Locus.

 “Thank you,” Locus tells Wash. Wash doesn’t say anything in return. He just looks at his feet. Some voices are telling him to not do this. To get away from him, but he’ll be safe right? He’ll have comfort and someone to hold onto. Someone to help with the nightmares that have gotten less frequent being around Locus. God he hates himself more than anything.

            Wash doesn’t pay attention to what’s being said. He keeps to his thoughts. Would Maine be disappointed in him? After everything that happened between him and Maine, he probably would be disappointed in Wash, but he’ll never really know.

            Before Wash knows it, the Reds and Blues are gone. Where did they go? He wasn’t paying attention to anything. He hadn’t even noticed the fight that broke out.

 “Call Control.” Locus lets out an annoyed sigh. He takes Wash’s hand. Trust. _Trust._ Why does Wash trust Locus? What’s so special about Locus other than he helps mentally? Is he helping mentally? Is… Is he being played? No, he can’t be. There’s no way. It’ll be okay, right? Now that he’s not with his team and he’s with Locus. That means everything will be okay, right? Right?!


	6. Chapter 6

             They take Wash to a base somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Big shocker there. They got there by one of the teleportation grenades. Wash takes off his helmet, holding it in one hand. His other hand won’t let go of Locus. He’s a bit afraid to let go. Felix tries to poke Wash’s face, but Wash flinches away.

 “Don’t touch me.” He grips tighter on Locus’s hand.

 “Felix, behave. Leave Wash alone.” Locus still has his helmet on, but Felix can feel the glare.

 “Fine. Hurry up. We have to call Control.” Felix walks off.

            Wash lets Locus guide him to the new room. He knows he’ll be spending almost all his days here. At least when Locus isn’t around. It’s understandable from a rational stand point. It’s to keep Wash from running away or getting into trouble with the other soldiers on the base.

            The room looks like the one in the Fed’s base, but smaller. There’s a smaller bed, smaller desk. At least there’s still a private shower. Wash likes not having to shower with anyone else. Except for Locus. He likes those showers because he gets a nice head massage.

 “I’ll be back shortly.” Locus sees the slight amount of panic in Wash’s eyes. He takes off his helmet. “I promise I’ll be back shortly.”

 “Okay,” Wash nods. Locus leans down and kisses his forehead.

 “When this is all over, we’ll leave. Go somewhere, just us.” He gets a little smile out of Wash.

 “I’d like that.”

 “Me too. Wait for me here,” Locus turns on his heal and leaves the room before another word can be uttered.

            Wash sits on the bed and begins to slowly take off the rest of his armor. Might as well. He doesn’t really have a use for it while being here. He sets it neatly in a pile in one of the corners. Wash sits back on the bed and stares at the bare wall across from him. He knows he shouldn’t be here. He knows he should’ve stayed with his team. Something inside him didn’t want to stay with them. He likes what he has here with Locus. He understands Locus and he can’t help but to believe that Locus understands him too. He’s said it before that they are alike. He can see it, but whether or not Locus truly understands, is a mystery that Wash can’t really figure out.

            Is his team mad at him for making this choice? What does Carolina think of him? Would Epsilon be the only one that would truly understand his reasoning? The way Tucker sounded confused and tried to stop him. Do they hate him for his choice? Could they ever forgive him? Like they did when he shot Donut and tried to track them all down with Met- Maine?

            Wash hopes that Epsilon would understand and tell the rest the meaning behind what Wash has done. He hopes he never has to explain it to them. He can’t even answer himself. Why? There is no true answer. He’s just tired of everything. Why not go with what feels right? Why not go with someone that helps the nightmares? Why not? Could they ever understand that? Understand that his head is so messed up to make him make this choice?

            Wash doesn’t hear the door open. He continues staring at the wall, thinking, asking himself those questions. Locus quietly closes the door and takes off his helmet. The hissing sound of the helmet coming off makes Wash come back to this world. It was so quiet in there.

 “Oh, hello.” Wash stands up.

 “Were you,” Locus sets his helmet on the desk, “sitting there the entire time?”

 “Probably. I lost track of time, I guess.” He looks at the ground.

 “That’s okay. It’ll get better.” Locus lifts Wash’s head, planting a gentle kiss on his lips. He pulls away. “I have to go back to base.”

 “I thought we were at a base.” Wash grabs ahold of Locus’s hand. He’s not letting go. He knows he’s not going to. No, he can’t.

 “Back to the New Republic. I have something to do.” Locus brings Wash’s hand up to his lips. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

 “Don’t go.”

 “Stay here. Someone will be here to give you your meals if I’m not around. Okay?”

 “No, please don’t go. I…. I love you.”

 “I know; I love you too. When this is all over, I’ll get you out of here. We’ll leave together. How does that sound?”

Wash looks down at the ground again. He ponders the thought. It sounds like a good thought. Something…. Good. “Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”

 “Good. If you,” Locus makes Wash let go of his hand. He goes over to the desk. “really need to reach me, for any reason,” he pulls out a walkie talkie. He sets it to his helmets frequency. “you can reach me through here. Just don’t always expect a response, but I’ll hear you.” He hands the talkie to Wash. “Is that okay?”

 “Yeah,” Wash looks at it. He smiles slightly. “Yeah, that works.”

 “Good, I have to go.” Locus grabs his helmet.

 “Wait!” Wash sets the walkie down. He takes Locus’s hand to turn him towards himself. He plants his lips on him. Locus was a little startled at first, but gladly kisses back. Locus is the first to pull away, though.

 “I’ve got to go.” He opens the door.

 “Back soon?”

 “I’ll try,” Locus leaves. He closes the door behind him.

            Wash sighs. He turns and looks at the walkie. This shouldn’t be too bad. He has a way to contact Locus if need be. Which, he’ll most likely do anyway. It’ll help him probably. He’ll be able to calm down if he ever just panics.

            He takes the walkie to the bathroom. He sets it on the sink counter. He undresses slowly, putting his clothes in a neat little pile on the other side of the sink counter. He turns on the shower.

            Nice warm shower. He shouldn’t even be here. What the fuck is he even thinking? He knows this. He knows this is bad. He messed up once with Maine, not going along on his side. He won’t mess it up again. He won’t do that just because there are different sides. Sides don’t really mean anything. Not really. When you think about it, it’s just a way to divide everything.

            Like, Locus isn’t a good person right now, but after this, they’ll leave together. They will become good together. They can do that, right? That’s something they can do. It’ll be nice. Yeah, it won’t be picture perfect. Wash knows that. He knows that they won’t be perfect. It won’t be no white picket fence. It’ll be anxiety attack central. Panic after panic. They can get through it.

            A lot of people go through these kinds of things. Well, nothing as bad as him. He had an A.I. try to commit suicide in his head. He’s fucked up. He knows this. But this has to be okay in some way? Everything will be okay in the end. Has to be. At least, he can hope.  


	7. Chapter 7

            Wash finds himself tossing and turning almost every night Locus is gone. He’s back to nightmares every few seconds he’s asleep. He’s just given up on sleep all together. Once a day, Locus checks in on him. He doesn’t say much. Just asking how he is. Wash lies and says everything is okay. He believes that Locus thinks he’s lying, but going with it anyways.

            Wash gets dressed and clips the walkie talkie to his pants pocket. Time to use his sneaky powers to sneak out and explore. He can’t be in this room any longer. He heads over to the desk to get a set of headphones. He plugs it into the walkie talkie, so no one else can hear it go off if it does.

            The guy that drops off his breakfast, just did, so he has about an hour before he sees that Wash isn’t in there. He did put the food in the bathroom and closed the bathroom door to make it seem like he’s in there when the guy comes back. Wash has thought this through… kinda. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when he gets caught. Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Nah, screw it.

            Wash opens the front door slightly, peaking out. There’s no one there. Wow this is easy. He slips out of the room, scurrying into the shadows. He smiles to himself. Just like old times. It’s fun to find ways around people. He used to do this on the Mother of Invention. It was to get around his friends back then because they would get annoying sometimes. Sometimes they’d tease him. He would just want to be alone. Maine was the only one that could find him.

            Wash finds his way to the mess hall area. Side tracked, he goes in there, into the back where the kitchen is. Might be able to find something good for once. Usually what they feed him is dry, stale, or just plain gross. He’s glad that everyone is either out doing something or just watching the perimeter.

            Wash opens this big freezer like thing. _ICE CREAM!_ Wash goes to the back of the freezer and grabs a pint of vanilla ice cream. He holds it close to him, smiling like an idiot. He hasn’t had ice cream in a long while. He finds a spoon and heads back out to the main area.

            He finds his way to the training room? Gym? What are they calling it here? He assumes training room. Either way, there’s no one there. He sits in the corner with his ice cream.

 “Wash.” Locus comes through on the walkie talkie. Wash stops moving for a second, spoon in his mouth. “Answer me. I know you took the walkie talkie with you.”

Wash takes the walkie talkie off his pocket. “Has it really been an hour?”

 “Hour since when?”

 “Since breakfast.”

 “No.”

 “Uh… Oh.” Wash eats another spoonful of ice cream.

 “Where are you?”

 “Come find me. I’m still in the place,” he eats another. “thing. Found ice cream.”

            Locus walks in the training room with his arms crossed. Wash just continues eating the ice cream.

 “I should’ve known there was a tracking device in the thing.” Wash sets it and the headphones next to him. “Want some?” Locus sits next to Wash with his helmet in his lap.

 “No, thanks. May I ask why you’re out of the room?”

 “Bored. Started to basically hurt my mind.”

 “Sorry I had to go back to the base. I didn’t expect it to be long. When did you last sleep?”

Wash chuckles and finishes off the pint of ice cream. “That’s a good question.”

 “Come on.” Locus gets up. Wash shakes his head. “I will carry you.”

Wash stands up. “Fine. But I’m not sleeping.”

 “Yes you are. We both are.”

            Wash groans. He follows behind Locus with his walkie talkie. When they get back to the room, Wash puts the walkie talkie on the desk, then gets up on the bed. He watches Locus strip out of his armor.

 “Would you like to shower together?” Locus noticed Wash was watching.

 “Huh? What? Oh yes, please.”

 

            Wash curls into Locus’s side. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep after having lovely sex. Locus runs his fingers through Wash’s hair until he, himself, falls asleep. There’s something about this that is very calming to Locus. He is beginning to rethink everything. He just wants to leave with Wash. But Felix, he’s his partner. He can’t just leave his partner. That’s not what the perfect soldier would do. The perfect soldier stays with his partner through everything.

            Locus wakes up before Wash because there is a knock at the door. He groans and slowly gets out of bed without waking up Wash. He puts on pants before opening the door.

 “Come on, we have to go.” It’s Felix. Doesn’t surprise him. Felix stares at Locus’s abs. “Did you,” he leans in to look at the bed to see a blanket covered, naked, Wash. “you didn’t invite me?”

 “Give me ten minutes.” He pushes Felix out of the way as he closes the door. He sits on the bed and leans back over Wash. Wash groans and wakes up slightly. “I have to go.”

 “Nooooo,” Wash rests his hand on Locus’s chest.

 “Maybe I could see if I can get you the ability to come with us.”

 “Us as in Felix too? I hate him.”

 “I think everyone hates him except most women.” Locus turns to be on his side. He kisses Wash’s stomach. “Come on, get up. Get dressed.” He gets off the bed.

 “No, come back and sleep. I prefer that.” Wash sits up.

 “Seven minutes. Get dressed.” Locus has already gotten his under suit on. Wash sighs and gets out of bed.

 “Does this mean I get to wear armor?”

 “Yes.”

 “Okay, fine.” Wash begins to get dressed.

 “Four minutes.” Locus redoes his hair.

            They both are ready to go with one minute to spare. Locus takes Wash’s hand to guide him to the armory to find him something to wear. He lets Wash pick out something that he would like to wear.

 “I understand why I can’t have my own armor, but I miss the colors.” Wash does find some that doesn’t exactly resemble all the other space pirates. It’s a slightly different shade of black with a dark grey accent stripe.

 “It’s better than the blue though.” Locus points out.

 “It was only blue because blue team adopted me after the Side Winder stuff.” Wash takes a deep breath and finishes putting the armor on himself. He takes ahold of his helmet. “Let’s go.”

 “You clearly don’t want to talk about that.” Wash shakes his head. “I won’t push it.”

 “Good. Now, also, I will deck Felix if he gets too close to me.”

 “I’d like to see that.” They walk out to wherever Felix is. Wash sticking close to Locus. He’s going to be able to get out of this place. He doesn’t want to exactly leave, but getting out would be pretty nice. It’ll probably help him mentally.

 “Really? You trust him enough to take him with us?” Felix crosses his arms, glaring at Wash.

 “Yes. Where are we going?”

 “Control wants us to issue the SIM Troopers a proposition.”

 “They’ll never accept. Not as long as I’m here.” Wash sighs. “They also won’t just leave because they are now a part of this war.”

 “Let’s hope so. I’d like to kill them.” Felix grabs a teleportation grenade. Locus growls at Felix. “What? It’s true.” They teleport to one of the temples.

Wash groans and sits against the temple wall. “I’ll stay right here.”

 “I don’t trust him.” Felix rolls his eyes.

 “Don’t care.” Locus figures out what frequency they need so they can send the message to the SIM Troopers. It doesn’t take them long to send the message. Once they do, Felix begins to pace back and forth.

Felix stops in front of Wash. “Hey, Washy?”

 “Don’t call me that.”

 “Whatever, Washy. Tell me why can we trust you?”

 “Because I’d like to get away from here.” Wash gives him a nasty attitude.

 “Be nice.” Locus doesn’t even look at them.

 “I won’t be nice to this tangerine.”

 “What did you call me?”

 “A really small type of orange.”

 “Excuse you.”

 “Felix, take a walk.” Locus makes him back off. Felix walks off, mumbling to himself.


	8. Chapter 8

            The wait takes forever. It’s only like an hour, but feels like days upon days. Felix keeps mumbling to himself since Wash called him a tangerine. Locus wouldn’t be surprised if Wash calls him worse things, but then again, the simplest of things set Felix off.

 “Locus?” Felix’s voice rings through his thoughts, making him stop thinking. “How many men did you bring with you?”

 “Four. The rest were needed at the Capitol.” Why would he ask this? Is something going to happen?

            He watches Felix walk over to an area. Wash immediately gets up, also worried about something. He walks over to Locus and takes his arm since Locus is holding on to his gun.

Aaaaand Agent Carolina is here. She was mimicking their soldiers. Doesn’t surprise him really. Felix does pretty much all the talking because that’s just what he does. If anything, Locus prefers Felix to do the talking. He’s a bit awkward when it comes to that.

            Wash tilts his head slightly, wondering why the entire crew is here. Why didn’t they just take the ship? Or why didn’t Carolina get the others to take the ship and just keep Epsilon as her own? Wait. Wash notices that Epsilon isn’t with her. It’s not that hard to tell because she acts different with him in her head. Oh no.

            Of course they won’t listen to Felix’s demands. Even Wash new that. No one wants to listen to an idiotic tangerine. Not even Locus, but that’s kind of a different story. Wash likes how Carolina is trying to talk to him. He’s not even listening. There’s no reason to.

            There’s the Reds and Blues. They’re so stupid, but he bets they’ll kick on of their asses. Wash’s ass will also be kicked for not staying with them. He knows this.

 “Stay here.” Locus growls.

 “Fine by me. I’m not fighting them.” Wash sits himself down against the temple. He knows he should probably help Carolina because two against one isn’t the best, but that’s not his problem. She did always like doing things on her own instead of having her team help her.

            Wash smiles. He’s glad he’s not fighting them because they are good. If Locus would like to, they can partner up and fight Felix. They’d win. He should propose that suggestion to Locus.

            The smile disappears from Wash’s face. Carolina is down. Locus is sending Felix off to fight the rest of them. Is this right? No, this isn’t. It never will be. Wash stands up. But he’s been offered something he’s wanted for a while. Someone to help him. Then they can, he doesn’t know, something when they get somewhere. They could explore the galaxy _or something._

            Locus growls. Wash can hear it. He looks towards Carolina and she’s not there. Wash feels someone’s hand on his shoulder. It’s her of course.

 “Come with me, Wash.”

He looks at her and just shakes his head.

 “Come on! We have to go now!”

Wash shakes his head again. He yells at himself mentally to call for Locus, but he doesn’t.

 “Alright, sorry for this.” She teleports the two of them to the temple where the others are. Wash has to bite his tongue to not say anything. He doesn’t want to go. Why are they rescuing him?

            Wash watches everything unfold. He is proud of them for outsmarting Felix. He’s glad to witness that, but he watches everything go to shit. Locus comes in behind Felix. He knows they lock eyes, even though Locus has his helmet on. He watches them disappear. Now he just hopes that this armor has a tracking device or something.

 

 “He’s with them.” Locus takes his helmet off.

 “You fucking asshole. You didn’t keep track of your fucking boy toy?” Felix takes his helmet off too. “Now they’re going to make him fight their fucking war. Now we have two freelancers to fucking worry about. Just make the job a little harder. Just please.” Felix storms off to supposedly his room. Locus takes a deep breath.

 

            Wash stays quiet for the entire ride to base. He doesn’t even look at the guys the entire time. He’s not happy with them at all. Why couldn’t they just go to the ship and head home instead of this? They have no duty to help these people, so why would they? The moment they land, Wash walks off away from the base.

 “Agent Washingtub! Where are you going?!” Caboose tries to follow Wash.

 “No, Caboose. Stay with them.” Wash turns around to tell him. The moment he sees Carolina, he points at her. “Why? I was perfectly fine!” He lets his helmet fall to the ground.

 “Wash? We thought-“ Donut tries to speak.

 “No, you didn’t. I had as much access to the outside world as I wanted. Yeah, it was sneaking around, but I was perfectly fine. I didn’t need any of you.”

 “Wash,” Carolina crosses her arms.

 “No. I’m done with everything. I’m done fighting. I’m done. I’m not even supposed to be alive right now. So how dare you try to think for me.” Wash grabs the helmet, knowing damn well that Locus would know the frequency of it, and continues walking away from all of them.

            Wash finds himself pacing back and forth. He can understand why they brought him back, but that’s not their choice when he willingly went with them in the first place. So why couldn’t they figure out that he didn’t want to be with them? He’s just done with everything. Okay so maybe the sex made it official in his head. The way he feels with him. Good nor bad, he doesn’t care anymore. He doesn’t care if this will kill him in the end. That doesn’t bother him. He’s ready for that, but he’ll take the risk.

 “Wash?” It’s Carolina. “Tucker is going into surgery now.”

 “You’re not here for that. What do you want?” If Wash had to say it out loud, he’d rather deal with Felix constantly talk to him than this. At least then he’d have Locus with him.

 “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this?”

 “It’s not like you actually care, ‘Lina.” He won’t stop pacing.

 “I do care, Wash. I want to know why you’re acting this way. I care about you. I’m worried about you.”

 “The reason you don’t know why I’m this way is because you were never there to see what I was.” Wash takes a deep breath. He doesn’t want to go off on ‘Lina, but he feels like he probably will anyways.

 “I’m here now. Tell me.”

 “You wouldn’t understand because you were never there. You weren’t there for the pain. You weren’t there when I destroyed all the AIs. You weren’t there when Maine tried to kill me. You weren’t there when I had to watch someone I loved be torn to pieces and then be completely empty after. You weren’t there when he tried to kill me again. You weren’t there when the last thing I heard from him was my name as he fell. You were never there.” Wash doesn’t even hesitate.

 “Wash.”

 “No, you don’t get to say anything to me. You don’t get to tell me I’m wrong. I don’t want to be here. I’m done with everything.”

 “Wash, come on. Don’t do this. This isn’t you.”

 “How the fuck would you know? This is everything I’ve repressed. So excuse you. I’m waiting to be contacted again.”

 “The Wash I knew wouldn’t leave these people to die.” Carolina walks back to the base. Wash lowers his arms. She’s right with that, but he’s done with that. He’s tired of helping people. He doesn’t want to help people. Is it wrong to be so selfish?


	9. Chapter 9

           Wash stands outside of the medical bay doors. He should go in and see how Tucker’s doing, but he doesn’t actually want to go in there. This is his teammate though. Why couldn’t they just leave him there instead of this? He opens the doors and walks in. Tucker is asleep. Grif sitting beside him, eating chocolate and watching something on this data pad.

 “Why are you still here?” Grif gets up and glares at Wash. Word travels fast in an army.

 “To see how Tucker’s doing.” Wash is a little quiet.

 “He’s doing fine no thanks to you.” Grif shoes Wash out of the medical bay. Wash stands outside the medical bay, thinking about what happened. Is this his fault? He still cares about is team. He guesses that since he didn’t help with the fight in which Tucker got hurt turned them against him.

            He walks towards the mess hall. No one looks at him in a nice way. At least not like they used to in the Fed Base. They used to respect him because of how they knew he was with Locus. But now he’s here, away from Locus. They hate him. Doesn’t surprise him. He hates himself too. He’s fighting himself more than anything. Even though he does want to leave. He wants to leave with Locus. Here’s what he’ll do. He’ll help them fight the war then him and Locus will leave the planet.

 

 “’Lina, I want to fight with you guys. But I have one condition.” Wash jogs up to her.

 “What is that condition?” Carolina continues to walk. No sign of slowly down.

 “Don’t hurt Locus. Just get him away from Felix. Even with the limited time I was around both of them at the same time, I could tell that Felix was mentally abusing Locus to get what he wants. Just get Locus away and don’t hurt him.”

 “I can’t promise you that.”

 “I know, but at least try to?”

 “No promises.”

Wash stops walking. He knew this answer. He notices that Carolina stopped walking. She turns around to look at him.

 “What do you know about their base?”

 “Not much. I was never outside. And when I was sneaking around, I just went to the freezer and training room. Stayed in our room as well.”

 “ _Our_ room?” There’s Church.

 “Locus and I. That’s where I mostly stayed.”

 “Did you have sex too?” Church moves to be right in front of Wash’s face.

 “That is none of your business.”

 “He did.” Church appears over Carolina’s shoulders. “We can’t let him fight.”

 “Why not? Thought it was clear that I don’t want Locus harmed. That should’ve given anything away and Carolina here was okay with that. And it was only once. Plus a few showers together before knowing what was going on.” Wash crosses his arms. “I just want to get this shit over with so I can leave.”

 “Leave to where?” Carolina is the one to ask.

 “Nowhere with any of you. So is this a yes or no?”

 “We need your help, so yes. But still no promises on the condition.” She walks off to wherever she was going. Church still on her shoulder. Wash can feel his glare.

            Wash is assigned to a room. He just goes there instead. Once he’s in there, he puts the helmet on. It’s on the frequency to reach Locus, but he hasn’t tried to call. Maybe because Church is monitoring him. Doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. Wash debates on saying something and his yes side says to do it.

 “Hey, Locs? Probably being monitored.” Wash lays down on the cot.

 “Doesn’t surprise me.” Locus responds almost immediately. “Surprises me that they let you keep the armor.”

 “Me too. I assume there’s a tracking device in this too?”

 “Correct.”

 “Does Felix know?”

 “No. I told him you don’t have the armor anymore.”

 “Thank you for that. I do have to ask why you care enough to do this, though.”

 “You know why.”

 “And you’re not going to say that because someone could probably be listening in?”

 “Yes.”

 “Do you want to meet somewhere so we can talk? I don’t think we’ll be able to be together otherwise until this is all over.”

 “Yes. I can now.”

Wash gets up quickly. “Track me.”

 “Will do.”

            Wash rushes out of his room. He goes to grab a gun just in case something should happen. He’s sure nothing will happen. There’s no way Church can track him, so he’s sure they won’t track him. He goes into the woods a little way from the base. He checks his surroundings thoroughly. The moment he’s sure the surroundings are clear, he takes off his helmet and sets it on the ground. Moments later, Locus shows up.

 “You shouldn’t take your helmet off when you’re in a war zone.”

Wash turns to look at him. “Why didn’t you say that before they exposed you both to everyone on the planet? I wasn’t wearing a helmet then.”

 “True.” Locus takes his helmet off as well and walks up to Wash.

 “Will you answer my question from before?” Wash looks up at him with a small smile.

 “I care because I love you.” Locus leans down a little and kisses Wash gently. Wash rests his arms on Locus’ shoulders. Wash doesn’t want to pull away, but does anyway.

 “I want you to know that I’m going to be fighting with the army.” Wash removes his arms. “Just to make all this go faster. I’ve requested that they don’t harm you.”

 “You know they won’t listen to that.”

 “Yeah, but it’s worth a shot. Unless you just want to leave now?”

 “You know I can’t do that.”

 “Yes you can. Nothing is actually holding you here.”

 “You know what’s holding me here.” Locus takes off his right glove. He puts his hand on Wash’s left cheek. “You know I can’t just leave.”

 “Please?” Wash leans into the hand. “Just leave with me. I want to leave this all behind. I want to leave it behind with you.”

 “I know.” Locus removes his hand. “As soon as this is over, I promise, we’ll go.”

 “Okay, okay. I guess I can handle that.” Wash grabs his helmet. “We should probably get back to our respective bases.”

 “Yes.” Locus gives Wash a little kiss on the forehead. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Wash chuckles. “No promises.”

 “Of course. I wouldn’t expect anything different.” Locus begins to walk off. Wash smiles to himself and walks in the opposite direction.

 

 “Where have you been?” Felix crosses his arms. “I know you went somewhere.”

            Locus doesn’t answer him. He just looks through papers that were given to him a bit earlier. It’s easier to just ignore him.

 “Are you listening? Answer me you jackass. Where were you?”

 

 “Where were you?” Carolina stands in Wash’s doorway. Church hovering above her shoulder.

 “Nowhere important.”

 “Liar.” Church would roll his eyes if he wasn’t an AI. “You went to meet Locus.”

 “So you were monitoring my radio. Good to know.” Wash begins to take off his armor. “So I assume you know exactly where I went?”

 “No.” Carolina sighs. “What did you two talk about?”

 “Nothing that ruins this army. You’re going to have to trust me with that. Now if you’ll excuse me,” Wash pushes Carolina out of the way and closes the door.

            How could anyone think he’d give away anything. He’s not one to gossip. Not like he actually knows anything about this army. He doesn’t even know where it is. Locus does because of the tracking device, but still. He wishes people would stop questioning him. He’s not insane. He’s not going to jeopardize anything. He’s not _that_ selfish.


	10. Chapter 10

            It’s been a little while since they’ve had contact with the mercenaries. They’ve been going on these little runs for supplies and things. Wash has noticed how the rest of the team doesn’t clearly respect him anymore, but they still talk to him and things. He’s been told to train the armies. That’s the only thing they’ve allowed him to do, but this mission. Something about this Purge Temple? Fight against Felix? Sure, he’ll do it. Damn tangerine deserves to be beaten for once.

            The trip to the temple is awkward at best. Carolina doesn’t want to talk about anything but the mission. Church keeps glancing over towards Wash and he can feel the glare. It doesn’t bother him. He’s doing just fine. He’s done nothing wrong.

 “Are you going to be able to handle yourself?” Church asks.

 “Of course?” Wash doesn’t like being questioned. If he has to fight against Locus, he will. Nothing to it. Punches will be pulled, but hey, that was expected and they don’t need to know that.

 “Will you be able to fight against Locus?”

 “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t question me. It’s just one good spar match with death on the line.” Wash sighs. “Guess we’re going to get that sparring match anyway.” He didn’t mean to say that out loud.

 “What?”

 “Oh like day three or four of being separated, he asked to spar to make me feel better and I declined and said, without thinking, that I work better with him than against him, so we didn’t spar.”

 “Like Maine,” Carolina decides to speak up.

 “Yeah,” Wash looks at the floor of the pelican. “Like Maine.”

            It’s clear that Church wants to say more, but he doesn’t. They all stay quiet until they are dropped off at the temple. Once there, they get off, telling the others to stay safe as they fight at the Communication Temple. Wash looks around, this place is different than most places on the planet. Drearier. Makes sense because it’s a _Purge_ Temple. They walk down and over the lighted blue bridge to the door. Now it’s just a waiting game.

            Ten minutes of Wash thinking about where to go after this is all over. Ten minutes of thinking how he can get away from the group to leave. Ten minutes of wondering if he’ll be able to leave with Locus or if Locus will have to be left behind. If he has the be left behind, he’ll still leave. It’s better for him after he’s made his team hate him. Ten minutes later and Wash is watching Locus walk next to Felix. Walking down to the bridge.

 “No way.” Felix shakes his head. Wash just rolls his eyes. Did he really expect this to be done easily?

 “Hello, boys.” Everyone agreed on Carolina doing most of the talking.

 “So, you’ve chosen to make a final stand.” Wash swears Locus is almost telling it to him more than to the three of them.

 “These two just couldn’t resist a rematch.” Church needs to shut up. He’s getting annoying. Wash doesn’t really mean that, but it feels like they’re still connected. Which might be why Church acts the way he does to Wash. Wouldn’t surprise him.

 “Admirable, but hopeless.”

 “Just think about what you’re doing. This tower will kill everyone. Our soldiers and yours.” Wash tries to talk to just Locus, but from a distance, it seems like he’s talking to both of them.

 “That’s war Wash. Not everyone makes it back.” Wash can just hear the manipulation in Felix’s voice.

 “They can if you just turn away now. You can choose to end this right now. Just have to walk away.” Wash hopes Locus can hear the plea in his voice.

 “No, we can’t. We have our orders.” Felix takes a step closer to Locus and puts his hand on his shoulder. “Right, partner?”

            Wash takes a deep breath. If Felix wasn’t in the picture, Wash and Locus would’ve left a long time ago. This war would be over. But nooooo. Felix has to be a manipulative asshole. They all take a step back to get behind something. Shots fly past their heads on both sides. It’s a waste of bullets when you know you’re not hitting anyone.

            Locus takes the back route, leaving Wash with Felix. He’ll admit, Felix is a little better than him. More squirrelly than how even Florida used to be. It’s very annoying being beat by this tangerine.

 “You’ve caused us enough problems.” Felix hisses, trying to overthrow Wash. He just needs to get past him to get inside the temple.

 “Excuse you?” Wash pushes him back. “You’re the cause of all our problems.”

            Felix grunts and gets his knives out. Wash dodging all four of them, catching the last one. For someone with a helmet on, he sure looks surprised that Wash caught the last knife.

 “You think you’re the only one good with knives? Didn’t you guys have my file or whatever? Yeah, I figured that out.” Wash smiles to himself.

 “Whatever,” Felix gets out the great weapon, turning it on.

 “Really?” Wash sighs, fighting until he’s on the ground. Wash calls for Carolina as Felix runs past him. Her grappling hook grabs Felix by the ankle, dragging him off the edge of the bridge, but not before Felix grabs Wash’s ankle.

 “If you drop me, you drop us both!” Felix yells up to Carolina.

 “Do not drop him!” Wash hates heights. Why does this always happen to him? They are slowly pulled up until Wash and Felix are both upside down with their gravity boots holding them to the bottom of the platform.

 “Really?” Anyone could hear the eye roll in Felix’s voice.

 “We’ve had worse.” It’s true. Like the time they kicked Maine off a building. That was fun, yet worse times.

            Wash and Felix fight on the bottom of the platform until Wash hears Carolina call his name. The moment that happens, he gets himself up on the top of the platform. He takes ahold of Locus’ arm. He’s hit Locus hard enough to knock him down. Wash and Carolina on one side and Locus and Felix on the other. They all duck due to another platform that passes over the top of them. When they raise, they find Locus and Felix on the platform that just went by. The tangerine asshole gives them the finger. Real mature.

            Carolina uses her grappling hook to get them ahead of them, but the stupid asshole throws a little grenade at the hook, making them fall. He ends up cutting the platform in half with the light up sword. We fall onto the platform the two mercs are on. Here’s where it becomes Felix vs. Carolina and Wash vs. Locus. Aaaand Locus is invisible.

 “You’re pulling your punches,” Wash says into the air. When he’s turned around by a punch, he uses Felix’s knife he got from before to cut his hand and throw the blood in the general direction of wherever Locus is. He smiles. “Hi.”

 “Impressive.”

 “You can comment on my smarts later,” Wash throws the knife at Locus’ arm, breaking the camouflage. Locus naturally hits back till he has Wash on the ground. Locus takes the knife out of his arm and holds it in front of Wash’s face, as if to stab him with it. “Very believable.”

 “I do my best.”

            Locus calls for Felix to come over and help him. Locus gets off of Wash as Wash rolls off to the side just before Felix stabs the platform, making it lose its power. The platform goes down and all five of them are back on the bridge to the entrance of the Temple.

 “Back to square one.” Carolina is the first to speak.

 “Alright guys. This has been fun, but if you could just keel over and die already that’d be great.” Felix is clearly out of breath. Wonder when was the last time he had a decent fight.

 “What’s wrong tangerine? Getting tired?” Wash couldn’t help but to take a stab at Felix.

 “I’m not tired! You’re tired! I could do this shit all day!” _As you’re out of breath, sure Felix._ “How dare you call me that.”

            Carolina takes over the rest of the talking. It’s better that way. They talk back and forth until the mention of the ship. Such a brilliant idea. Take their ship and crash it on the temple. All of them run away from the temple the moment the ship comes into view. Wash gets behind Carolina and the bubble shield protects them.

            When it’s all over, they run back to the Communication Temple to help the others fight off the rest of the space pirates. He’s proud of himself for putting on that show.

 “Thank you.” Carolina breaks the silence.

 “For?” Wash is a bit confused.

 “For fighting and not going against me.”

 “I may not want to be here or fight, but I’ll never go against you.” That’s very true for Wash. He’ll never go against hit team. Even when he doesn’t want to do anything.

            Nothing else is said until the Communications Temple. They escort Tucker to the teleporter to get them inside the temple. This is almost done. Now all that has to happen is Locus to be okay. They have a spot where they’re going to meet. Just has to hope he’s okay and didn’t die from the debris like it look like he did.

            He has to fight here now. Fight his way into disappearing. It doesn’t take long either. He runs away from the fight, into the woods. He looks to find the tree. That one tree that is the biggest. Neither of them have actually been to this tree, but they have an idea of where it is.

            There’s a pelican waiting for them in the canyon where they originally crashed. When Tucker radios Wash that Locus and Felix are there, he tells him that he believes in them and he can do it. Wash takes this opportunity to go to one of the tractor beams and disable it so him and Locus don’t have to do this themselves.

            There is no one there guarding it, so Wash takes his time trying to figure out what to do to turn this thing off. It’s actually not as hard as one would think. It doesn’t take a genius. He turns that off in less time he thought it would take, so he makes his way back to the tree. He finds Locus there already.

 “Hey, Locs. Ready?” Wash takes off his helmet. “Everything is ready for us to leave.”

 “Felix is dead.”

 “Good.” Wash lets his helmet fall to the ground. He’s not going to need it anymore. He walks up to Locus and takes off his helmet, letting it also fall to the ground. “It’s just you and me now.”

 “I’m a wanted fugitive.” Locus can’t look at Wash.

 “That’s okay. I don’t care. I want to go away with you. Don’t back out now.” Wash begins to strip off the rest of his armor. “And we don’t need this anymore.” He helps take Locus’ armor off of him. Locus doesn’t protest, he just lets him. “Come with me.”

Locus puts his hand on Wash’s cheek. “I love you.”

 “I love you too.” Wash smiles.

 

 

Months later.

            Locus wakes up to the sound of the shower running. It’s only a small motel for now. They haven’t found a place to possibly live yet. Locus lays there, not sure what’s happen. Something about the sound of the water. The warm decent bed. There are birds chirping. He can’t remember the last time he actually listened to the birds. The sun shining through the blinds.

            The water stops, bringing his attention back to the bathroom. He sits up. Wash comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He’s gained some weight since they’ve left Chorus. Looks really good now.

 “Sam.” Wash smiles. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 “You didn’t wake me. I just woke up.”

 “Okay good. Do you want to go get breakfast and then go look at these apartments?”

 “Yes.” Locus gets up. Wash walks over to him, wrapping his hands around Locus’ waist.

 “Good, because I’d like to get out of these motels.”

 “I don’t care where we are because I just want to be with you.” Locus leans down and kisses Wash.


End file.
